Investigation into bomb threats during Drag Queen Story Hour ends with no arrests; threats came from Nigeria: DA (Update) | Local News

Email bomb threats that led to the evacuation of parts of downtown Lancaster on the day of a scheduled March 23 Drag Queen Story Hour in the Lancaster Public Library were traced to Nigeria (Africa), but not to a specific person.

The district’s top prosecutor said the investigation was closed without law enforcement being able to file charges against anyone.

“This entire incident is not dissimilar in its nationwide scope, the medium chosen, and the origin of the accounts to similar bomb threats in late 2023 in which ‘malicious actors’ targeted Jewish institutions and schools, and even more recent threats targeting similar events planned in other states since April of this year,” Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said in an emailed statement.

“While an arrest is not possible, the public has a right to know that responsibility for these threats clearly lies not with our community, not with our state, and not with our nation, but with those who simply seek to wreak havoc in our daily lives,” Adams said. “Of course, threats of this nature against any person or group are unacceptable, and law enforcement will remain on high alert and continue to take any threat of violence seriously.”

According to prosecutors, the report was also linked to several bomb threats that led to the cancellation of similar events planned for the same day in other states. A drag queen story hour at a library in Reading, Massachusetts, was also targeted by a bomb threat on March 23rd.

“A thorough investigation and evaluation of all information received indicates that the email account used to send the bomb threats against locations and individuals in the City of Lancaster on March 23 was linked to numerous other email accounts, all created within two weeks prior to the threats and all from the same device: a cell phone,” prosecutors said.

There was no participant information linked to either the email accounts or the phone, which is not unusual, the office said.

Threat of 23 March

In the weeks leading up to the planned event, the event became the focus of public debate and criticism after some local officials and community leaders said it was not suitable for children.

The drag event was Cancelled hours before the scheduled start after two bomb-sniffing dogs responded to a suspicious package during a raid on the library.

Shortly after noon, several hours after the organizers announced the cancellation of the event on social media, a bomb threat was sent by email, explicitly citing the drag event as the reason.

The threat also included the home addresses of the library’s executive director, the president of LGBTQ+ advocacy group Lancaster Pride, the offices of LNP | LancasterOnline, and the home address of LNP reporter Dan Nephin.

Providing increased security cost the city and county at least $7,600.

Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace declined to comment on the results of the investigation.

This bomb threat resulted in an approximately three-hour evacuation order for an area of ​​several blocks near the library, which was lifted at 3:30 p.m.

More than a dozen business owners in the area told LNP that They each lost thousands of dollars in revenue because of the threats.

The planned event, which would feature a drag performer reading age-appropriate books to children and their parents, would likely have been just one of many events the library hosts throughout the year.

That changed after Lancaster County’s two Republican county commissioners, Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino, criticized the event on social media, claiming that the artist’s shows, which were aimed only at adult audiences, made the performance unsuitable for children.

The artist, Chris Paolini of Berks County, performed a show for children and parents as part of Lancaster’s Pride celebrations last week. The performance was not publicly announced in advance.

Cyber ​​threats are difficult to detect

Several threats in recent years have been traced by federal and local authorities to foreign sources. In 2022, several historically black universities and colleges were subject to threats which later turned out to have been detected abroad.

Last week, a Pride celebration took place in Grand Marais, Minnesota. was briefly interrupted through a fake bomb threat, the source of which was later proven to be in Russia, according to the FBI,

The ability to use hacked email accounts or proxy web servers makes it extremely difficult to find the culprits of various online crimes. A typical example is the experience of Eddie Manuel Núñez Santos, a Peruvian and owner of an IT services company who was arrested last fall in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice and charged with making 150 threats against schools and synagogues in Pennsylvania, New York and three other states.

The charges against Núñez Santos were dropped in December. According to a BBC News reportHe said investigators mistakenly believed the emails sent from his service came from him rather than from one of his customers who may have been hacked.